Will this team be the worst of the last four years?

I truly believe that people will be surprized by the rotation this year. Nolasco should be solid, Hughes WILL look great if you ask me, Correia will be similar to last year, Pelfrey will.........um... and Gibson will find his stuff and prove he will be here for awhile, The offence is really beggining to scare me. We need some young guys to step into their roles this year to avoid what happened in september last year.

It will never cease to amaze me how so many people who claim to be fans will go out of their way to prophesize doom and gloom.

Offense:
Some positives and some negatives.
Mauer will be Mauer, as someone has already pointed out, and could quite possibly be even better than before
Dozier is an excellent second baseman. Top 10 in MLB, perhaps top 5. Some will say he has to prove it, I say he has proven it.
Plouffe, Hicks, Arcia can all realistically be counted on for .250 or better with some pop and in Hicks' case some speed.

Hammer could very easily be done. Or he could be in that .250 with pop category. Not expecting great things from him this year, hoping for good things.
Floriman will play excellent defense but anything at the plate is a bonus.
Suzuki isn't likely to hit well. Pinto is.
Kubel seems like a mistake.
Coloballo could have some nice value off the bench.

Defense:
Strong up the middle with Flori, Dozier, and Hicks. Average at C and possibly 1B. Slightly be low average at 3B. The corner OF won't be pretty unless Pressley plays some left.

Pitching:
Average at worst. Likely at least a full run lower ERA than last year's squad. Instead of the entire rotation made up of marginal starters (Diamond, Worley, Hernandez, Albers, et al) we now have an entire staff of true MLB caliber pitchers. Likely that Meyer is up with the club at some point.

Summation:
Pitching much better, holding par on offense and defense. Win range from 70-85.
So much to look forward to this year if you are a real fan.

The pitching will be better but the offense alot worse. 65 wins is tops that I can see. And I'm not sure Gardy has the nuts to take some chances to tweek it. The atmosphere down here is the worst I've ever seen since the place opened.

I'm surprised that I've come to this, but I think Kubel has to make the team to improve the offense. And Bartlett should be up in May, if he does take the AAA route. At least those two have experience to draw on. The younger guys on the team have never been on a winner.

Frankly, I have a hard time with anyone who feels optimism is a requirement to be a "real fan". I don't think it's fair to throw a criticism like that around just because people are taking a sober view.

This team defense is going to be absolutely unwatchable terrible at times...yuck, Willingham and Acria are going to give up a lot of doubles.
This team's offense is going to pretty bad, without the hope/excuse of J-Mo to fall back on.
This team's pitching is going to be better - assuming the terrible D doesn't bite them in the ass.

Frankly, I have a hard time with anyone who feels optimism is a requirement to be a "real fan". I don't think it's fair to throw a criticism like that around just because people are taking a sober view.

It's unpredictable ... offense could be disastrous or could be decent if some guys come through.

The one thing I'm pretty sure of? None of us (with perhaps an exception or two for someone I don't know about) has any influence on what happens. We can sit here and debate it forever but in the long run, all we get to do is watch (or, if it gets too bad, NOT watch).

Real fans will look forward to different things, though. I look forward to killing a few hours a week, and maybe having a beer and a dog. And I'm both a fan and real. Or maybe a fan and complex. Possibly even a fan and transfinite.

It will never cease to amaze me how so many people who claim to be fans will go out of their way to prophesize doom and gloom.

Offense:Some positives and some negatives.Mauer will be Mauer, as someone has already pointed out, and could quite possibly be even better than before Dozier is an excellent second baseman. Top 10 in MLB, perhaps top 5. Some will say he has to prove it, I say he has proven it. Plouffe, Hicks, Arcia can all realistically be counted on for .250 or better with some pop and in Hicks' case some speed.

Hammer could very easily be done. Or he could be in that .250 with pop category. Not expecting great things from him this year, hoping for good things.Floriman will play excellent defense but anything at the plate is a bonus.Suzuki isn't likely to hit well. Pinto is. Kubel seems like a mistake.Coloballo could have some nice value off the bench.

Defense:Strong up the middle with Flori, Dozier, and Hicks. Average at C and possibly 1B. Slightly be low average at 3B. The corner OF won't be pretty unless Pressley plays some left.

Pitching:Average at worst. Likely at least a full run lower ERA than last year's squad. Instead of the entire rotation made up of marginal starters (Diamond, Worley, Hernandez, Albers, et al) we now have an entire staff of true MLB caliber pitchers. Likely that Meyer is up with the club at some point.

Summation: Pitching much better, holding par on offense and defense. Win range from 70-85.So much to look forward to this year if you are a real fan.

A real fan? As one who isn't all that confident this team will match last year's wins total I assume you're talking to me.

Just so I have this straight, real fan -70 wins, not real fan-65 wins, is that correct?

Don't think you're more of a fan of this team just because you choose to believe something I don't. It's an insult to my intelligence and yours.

I wouldn't go as far as that last part, but the rest is spot on. At this point, what has this club earned but doom and gloom? Especially with what the offense looks like. It could be historically awful.

Willingham and Arcia are absolute keys to the offense. If they both hit like last year, the club will be worse offensively. There are reasons to expect turnarounds for both, but no promises. The Twins will need to hit homers since they really don't have a lot of players good at producing runs in other ways. Arcia and Willingham need to hit homers and drive in runs.

Pitching should be better, but it will still probably be below average. We've ignored the possibility that members of the bullpen will regress. I believe that will happen, but that the starters and the back end of the bullpen will improve.

People aren't predicting 90 losses... I think that's about where the Twins end up this year, were I a betting man.

The operative word is "worse". To be worse than a 96, 99, and 96 loss team, you need to lose 100 games.

And given the pitching improvements, it takes quite a bit of doom and gloom to predict a 100 loss season.

We also heard the same thing before last season and by all measures but the actual W-L, you could argue the team was, in fact, worse last year than the previous year. This after an offseason of insistence that there was " no way" we could pitch any worse.

This could be a 97, 98, 99 loss team and actually play better overall than last year.

There's absolutely an avenue that leads the Twins to an improved offense in 2014.

- Mauer plays more games at the level of performance that he has already established
- Willingham rebounds to pre-2012 form, or just slightly worse (126 OPS+ from 2009-2011, it would be unwise to expect his 2012 form).
- Hicks and Arcia improve. This seems reasonable considering their talent, age and the fact that Hicks couldn't get any worse.
- Dozier improves. For all the praise we gave Dozier last year, he was exactly league-average offensively (100 OPS+). He was better than that from June on though.
- If Hicks falters, the Twins can go to Alex Presley instead of Clete Thomas, Presley is a much better hitter than Thomas.
- While Suzuki certainly cannot match Morneau's production in 2013, Pinto could. If the Twins tire of Suzuki's bat or Pinto forces their hand, he could easily match Morneau's 104 OPS+.
- Eduardo Escobar should get Jamey Carroll's at-bats from last year. Escobar was nothing special last year, but he's young and his OPS+ (74) was significantly better than Carroll's (53).

So far, the two biggest reasons that have been cited for the Twins having a worse offense are the Morneau for Suzuki swap (legit) and the energy level of the veterans during Spring Training (subjective at best, unfair and irrelevant at worst).

The lineup doesn't look great right now, but I think the dial has swung just a little too far toward the cliff, when there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic and realistic at the same time.

We also heard the same thing before last season and by all measures but the actual W-L, you could argue the team was, in fact, worse last year than the previous year. This after an offseason of insistence that there was " no way" we could pitch any worse.

This could be a 97, 98, 99 loss team and actually play better overall than last year.

The title of this thread is "is this the worst team of the last four years?"

That requires a 100 loss season. I don't see how anyone could predict that without a healthy dose of pessimism.

The lineup doesn't look great right now, but I think the dial has swung just a little too far toward the cliff, when there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic and realistic at the same time.

Except there are serious flaws in your reasons. Mauer will play in more games, but that doesn't mean it'll be an improvement on last year. In the games Mauer missed he was replaced by Pinto's superhuman September.

Willingham is old and breaking down. It's more likely 2012 is his reality than 4 years ago or even 2 years ago.

And it ignores how many at-bats this team might feed to Suzuki, Kubel, Florimon, Plouffe, Hermann, etc. that might be as bad or worse than their complements last year.

Dozier, Arcia, and Hicks are really the only hopes the Twins have for improvements and there is reason to be dubious of all three. And reason to be optimistic as well.